XOPL.com

that's not lettuce

Xopl — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:27:52 +0000

This story is true, only names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Last night I went out with the waffle for a kind of pre-birthday Friday night dinner at a Uncommon Toots. It seemed like a great decision at the time because they were having a two-for-one deal on their entres if you mentioned Tweeter. Waffle I think really wanted to go to the DD Dlub instead, and that may have been very prophetic of her.

So we go up and put in our orders, right? (Right.) I ordered a Schlepard's Pile and a Mission of Squirrely to drink. Waffle ordered the Rice-Otho (which was free cause of the deal) and an Angrious to drink. They gave us the number 4 and told us to have a seat, and they would bring it out.

After a brief dispute, 3 minutes of silence, and 7 minutes of sitting there doing other things -- our beer had still not arrived. We went back and forth on who should go up to ask about it. If we should go up to ask about it. Finally I made a move.

I go up to the register, and say "hi" to the barista. She says "HEYKRRRZZZZSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH." (she was making a latte. that was the sound of the steam.) She's clearly busy.

A minute later of me standing there, some other employee guy comes up to the register. I say hi to him, and he turns to the lady standing to the left of me and tries to help her first instead. The lady is so surprised by this that she doesn't even say anything at all, so the employee guy turns back to me, and I say, "Hi" again. "Hey, I don't know if you guys usually bring the drinks out with the food," I say non-confrontationally, "but we'd be happy to take them now instead." Employee guy says, "oh no, we usually do the drinks right away. there must have been a mix up. what did you have? I'll bring it out."

I go and sit back down. Employee guy comes 'round in about a minute with our food first, then he comes back with the Mission of Squirrely, and finally the single pint of Angrious for waffle.

The Squirrely Mission was awesome. I especially liked their Not-Harsh, and I hope they sell it in the stores.

The Schlepard's Pile was quite tasty... it had buffalo meat in it. Tasted just like beef to me. I did have to pick out one large bay leaf, but no harm, no foul.

I had a few bites of my little side salad that came with the Pile. Pretty tasty. "hmm... wow" I think to myself "that's the biggest piece of lettuce I've ever seen in my whole life. Funny color, too." I use my fork to lift up and inspect this humongous brown single leaf of lettuce soaking in dressing on my plate. The waffle say, "is that... is that a paper towel?"

full stop.

"yes. yes it *is* a paper towel."

VOMIT EVERYWHERE.

No, ok: no vomit. Just no more salad. I knew I had to say something to the staff, but I didn't want to do it in front of the long line of customers that had recently formed. "what the fuck is this paper towel doing in my salad? [throws plate onto counter in front of 12 customers who haven't ordered yet]" I didn't want to do that.

The line for ordering at the counter by this time was so long that there are customers standing near where we are sat eating. One of them is staring at us, and finally asks what it is that I am eating.

"Schlepard's Pile." I say.

"Is it good?" the customer asks.

"Yes. Very good." I respond. "(Just don't get the salad.)" I say under my breath.

The crowd clears out a bit, so I go up to the counter and lean in kind of close to the employee to signify I'm about to whisper. "hey, I didn't want to make a scene earlier, so I waited. There's a napkin or paper towel in my salad."

The employee, she's the same one who forgot our drinks just for the record, says "What?! I'm so sorry! I'll come over!"

She sees the problem with my salad. Apologizes some more. Comes to the same conclusion we did that it probably was used to pat the leaves dry or something, and never got taken out.

She insists on refunding my part of the meal, and bringing me a new salad (I said I really did not want another salad, but oh well.) That was nice of her.

I used a bit of the refund to buy some Cream Burntly for dessert. It was runny.

The end.

i want my 8 years back

Xopl — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:49:58 +0000

Well that's finally fucking over.

jerks just jinxed jet

Xopl — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:30:38 +0000

Boing Boing was just going on and on yesterday about how we haven't had a plane crash in this country in like 7 years or something.

What happens today? A fucking plane crashes into the Hudson river.

You didn't knock on wood, did you Boing Boing?

'green' slant-rhymes with 'dream' anyway

Xopl — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:44:41 +0000

I made things green around here.

So I had this dream the other morning where I was eating handfuls of little brightly colored army men action figures made out of pretty much the same material as pencil erasers. I wasn't enjoying it in my dream, and when I woke up I wanted to vomit. The taste still haunts me.

Also, if there can be dirty hipsters, does that mean there can be clean squaresters?

boy who cried wolf

Xopl — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:28:24 +0000

no reason to be alarmed

Xopl — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:23:56 +0000

I can only hope I'm a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist and I never have to say, "I told you so."

The Army Times has an interesting article:

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the
day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of
Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or
manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
...
But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been
given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established
in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense
efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
...
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or
to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning
and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear
or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
...
The 1st BCT's soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever
nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col.
Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment
and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous
individuals without killing them.

Ok, so first of all, whatever happened to the Posse Comitatus Act?

Second of all, isn't this what we have a National Guard for? Oh wait, that's right, they are all deployed in shit hole countries overseas.

THIRDLY, our former Halliburton subsidary friends at KBR, have this to say:

The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.
...
The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster.

Emphasis mine. Horror also mine.

assimelonation (groan)

Xopl — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:01:10 +0000

So I was shopping at a Super Target when I saw that they sold Borg brand cantaloupes... pretty hilarious:

(Photo Source, license.)

here is your excessive force

Xopl — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:31:44 +0000

everybody should watch this video

All this young woman did was ignore police orders. She used no force. They could have just arrested her, but instead they used force and pain compliance to get her to listen to them. Why? Because arresting every non-violent protester for "failure to follow a valid police order" would be a burden on the cops and the courts, so they just dish justice right out on the streets. Reminds me of that movie Judge Dredd.

and it bears repeating now

Xopl — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:28:04 +0000

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/2_Texas_men_charged_in_RNC_0906.html

I'm sorry, but "lefty anarchist terrorists" would never ever ever EVER buy their molotov cocktail supplies from a Walmart.

some good questions

Xopl — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:26:31 +0000

A recap of the munitions used against protesters at the RNC:

http://www.minnesotaindependent.com/7923/crowd-control-at-the-rnc-fifty-million-unanswered-questions

A few things to consider here:

1. The RNC paid the premiums on a $10 million insurance policy for the police in St. Paul to pay for any lawsuits against the police brought by protesters. This has many implications.

2. If the police had let Thursday's march proceed undeterred to the prescribed "free speech zone" by the convention instead of blocking the protesters' path across the bridge would the protesters have been committing any crime other than petty misdemeanor jay-walking?

3. Is St. Paul's protest permitting law constitutional? Even if it is, if you view the protest crowd as individuals who all just happened to be attempting to walk peacefully to the designated "free speech zone" outside the convention, then didn't the police violate these people's First Amendment Rights?

It sure seems to me that preventing protesters from reaching a police and city sanctioned cage where citizens are supposed to exercise their First Amendment Rights by using Unlawful Assembly citations before the protesters can reach the cage is dubious.